


Find Your Way Home

by peter_panda



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Alive, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Nogitsune, this is sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:59:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6569017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peter_panda/pseuds/peter_panda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Wait.” Stiles comes closer, he can feel it but doesn't turn around to face him, not yet. “You were listening to my heartbeat.”</p><p>(or the Nogitsune tells Derek that Stiles loves him. Stiles cannot sleep and Derek tries to help. Also, Derek Hale deserves nice things and Stiles is a delight, so.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find Your Way Home

It's an exercise.

He is blindfolded in the middle of the woods. The air is humid and slightly suffocating.

“Can you find the way home, Der?” says Laura, he cannot be sure in which direction she stands and cannot smell her either. It's probably something to do with the wind.

Alright, he thinks, even though panic is rising in the pit of his stomach. Just find home, you can do it. He tries to calm his mind and focus on the smell. There's lots of things to confuse the wolf, though.

It smells like pines and leaves, like wet dirt, and something slightly less leaf-y but he's not sure what that smell belongs to. There is the weak smell of the wood and bark, dead and alive. There is his own smell, so faint but still present. He's not sure what to look for, his mom or cookies, or maybe Matt's crayons? The faint smell of the lemon-y detergant his father likes to use? Dark chocolate from Laura's not-so-secret stash?

Then the wind turns, or at least it should have beacuse now he can smell Laura. Cinnamon and lillies, a combination most people wouldn't think would work but it works, somehow. He tries to go towards that smell but then Laura tchks silently and he remembers, home. He needs to find home, otherwise he wouldn't be able to find it on the night of the full moon.

(“Can't I just find Laura?” he said to his mother, two days ago, when this idea was brought up for the first time. “And she can take me home.”

“You can't always rely on someone else.” his mother answered, still smiling but with an uneasiness he couldn't quite place. “There might come a time where none of us can be there to find you, and even at that time, you must be able to come back home.”

Derek wanted to ask a lot of questions then, but his mother gave him this soft-but-forbidding look and he gave it up. )

He catches the smell of apples, mixed with something sticky-sweet but unidentifiable. There is no one else in the three mile radius and the smell is too faint to be near, so it must be home. He tracks it as fast as he can, trying to keep it in focus against stronger smells of the woods. And finally, he walks into someone, a someone who holds him tight to them and whispers, “I'm so proud of you, son.”

oooOOOOoooooOOOOoooo  
Stiles stands on his doorstep, in his pj's, looking so deathly tired and pale. His eyes look bruised and he looks- vulnerable. Derek never saw him like that before.

“Sorry. I know it's late, I just- couldn't sleep and Scott worries too much already and I was just going to drive around for some time but then I got- scared.” He says the last bit as if it's a shameful secret. “So I thought I could at least make myself useful.”

Derek simlpy steps aside to let him in.

“Did you take French?” He asks and Stiles nods but then adds “Probably not enough for what we have here, though.”

Derek nods and slides him one of the two modern English sources. “You can stop whenever you feel sleepy.” He says. Stiles looks already lost in the job. “Did you hear me? You will go to sleep Stiles, this is just something to keep you busy until you are tired enough, okay? You need your rest.”

“Aye captain.” answers Stiles, without even looking up but it's enough and Derek knows better than pushing it.

After some time, Stiles yawns, his eyes losing their focus and silently, he leaves the pages and walks to the sofa.

“You can take the bed.” Derek says silently.

“It's better this way.” His voice is so small. “When- there is someone else in the room. Calms me down.”

This becomes a routine. Stiles shows up at his door, almost every other night, they work for a bit in silence and then he drifts off on the couch. Derek keeps working until his eyes sting, until the words begin to blur and turn into gibberish. And then, he gently covers Stiles with the blanket Lydia chose for him, sits there for a second just listening to his even breathing. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling because there needs to be a border of creepiness. That's what he tells himself when he's about to fall asleep, his mind calm with the echo of those calm breaths, their existence an anchor.

Fuck, he thinks later, so much later, the first morning Stiles woke up in his house.

 

oooOOOOoooooOOOOoooo  
“I still don't get it.” says Isaac, pouting under the blindfold. “Why can't I just find things like I usually do, you know, using these things called eyes?”

“Because, your eyes might be damaged.” says Derek for the 39th time in one hour. “It's not that hard, okay? Just try it.”

“Fine.” He sighs, hands reaching out like a little kid playing a game. “Who was I supposed to find again?”

“Scott.”

“Can he at least talk?” Isaac says, taking a timid step towards the wall. “Or both my eyes and ears are damaged now?”  
“That's more than possible.” snaps Derek. “Have you ever heard of a flash gun? There goes your sight and the noise takes out the ears for a good ten minutes. Now stop whining.”

“Fine, fine no need to be so gentle with me.” he mutters, and Derek knows, he knows he's being a bit too harsh most of the time but it's for their own good. They don't have time and he cannot bear the tought of having them hurt just because he wasn't fast enough to teach them what to do. Better alive than happy, he thinks to himself. And he's better off relieved than adored.

It takes 15 minutes for Isaac's hand to brush Scott's shoulder, but Derek calms himself by admiting it's good enough for now.

oooOOOoooOOOooo  
It takes him an embarassingly long amount of time to realise that Stiles smells like, well, home.

He doesn't know how else to put it. He doesn't smell like anything specific, he cannot give a list of elements. All he knows is that in total, the smell reminds him of home and that's a bit scary, if he's being honest. Firstly because that never happened before, not even with his actual family but secondly because Stiles scares the fuck out of him while confusing him to hell.

At least, that's what he says to himself. Because this much is safe. Another set of emotions, well, they are never ever safe anymore, not as long as it's Derek.

It's agonizing to sit in a room with him, because the smell tortures him in the sweetest way, cutting him deeper than any knife. He waits, patiently for his brain to get used to it to the level of avoiding it but it doesn't happen. It happens with every other smell, even with the most overpowering ones, even with the fresh paint on the newly renovated Hale house, but not with this one. This smell lingers, getting ever the more powerful, numbing every other thing out.

Stiles laughs, soft and sleepy from the couch he's splayed on, his head on Scott's lap, tells him something about the movie they are watching, and Derek watched this movie a billion times but he suddenly cannot remember the name or the plot for his life, because this is the first time Stiles laughed, for real, ever since the-the thing.

Erica gives him this knowing look but he tries to ignore her, staring at the bookshelves instead, sees Laura's favourite with its old binding and hears the voice, like it was here yesterday, “Can you find the way home, Der?”

ooooOOOOooooOOOOoooo  
“I love you.” Stiles says and for a second Derek suspects his mind is playing a game, that Stiles is poisoned with something, that this is a parallel universe where everything is reversed, that the person is an impostor but then there is the smell, unchanged and unwavering and Derek's heart skips like ten beats at once.

“Stiles-” He tries to interrupt but Stiles shakes his head and starts to speak as if this is his last hour on the planet.

“I know you feel uneasy talking about this kind of thing.” He says, and Derek can smell the anxiety that spoils that sweet smell, Stiles' voice shaking slightly. “And I really don't want to make you uncomfortable, I just, I know it told you. You know, that little show was for me more than it was for you.”

(And Derek can see it, being on his knees, trembling, looking up to Stiles' face that is not his anymore, his eyes alight with something horrifying and says, with a sickly sweet voice, “Oh, only if you could hear how he screams.” And cold hands hold his face, making him keep the eye contact. “You didn't know?” He says, interested. “You see, he loves you, this one. How tragic. My favourite kind of story, actually. I will make sure to give him something to remember, as a thank you for all the fun he let me have.” And then the hands hold his face even tighter, begins to slightly turn his head and then-

And then Allison stabs Stiles, Derek sees her ghostly pale face, frozen with terror even before he can feel the blood on his face and Stiles falls into his waiting arms, breathless and spasming and Lydia begins to chant, he hears Scott scream, hears Isaac struggling to hold Scott down and-)

“And I thought- don't get me wrong, it was nice of you not to bring it up and all, and maybe you didn't wanted to talk about it and well-what was I saying, oh yeah, I thought, after all your experiences with, well, love, I thought you deserved to hear those words without something horrible happening or someone using them to manipulate you, you know? So, here it is. I love you. It was true. You don't have to say anything, really, we don't have to talk about it ever again, we can just-”

“Stiles.” he says and Stiles stops, sligthly shaking as if he cannot stop himself even when silent, and looks him in the eye. “Say it again.”

“What-” he says, looking so confused but then gets it. Derek can see it clear as day on his face, the death of the not very convincing confidence and it's replacement, nervousness. “I love you.” he says, quiter but somehow surer.

“Again.” 

“Are you having fun-” He shakes his head slightly. “Fine. I'm going to humour you. I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you. Do you want me to sing it or something?”

“No, it's enough.” Derek looks down, suddenly ashamed, walks towards the papers on the table just so he can have something to do with his hands.

“Wait.” Stiles comes closer, he can feel it but doesn't turn around to face him, not yet. “You were listening to my heartbeat.”

Derek cannot decide for a moment if him knowing is relieving or embarassing.

“You were.” He insists, as if Derek had opposed. “You wanted to check if I was lying.” he sounds slightly offended. “Took you what, five times, to trust me?”

“No.” Derek says silently, hoping that maybe he might not hear him and Derek can spare himself some shame. “I got that in the first time. The other times, I was just- I never heard it before- when it was real, I mean. I guess I was just listening-” He trails off.

And then Stiles hugs him, from behind, his face burried in Derek's nape and the scent surrounds him.

“I can say it again.” He says, quietly, into Derek's skin. “I can say it how many times it takes for you to feel safe again. And then some. Even if you never trust me enough to say it back. Because you know what? You deserve nice things, and lots of people say I'm a delight, so- ”

Derek can't help himself with the chuckling. “Who has ever called you a delight?” He asks, still laughing even though his eyes are still wet.

“No need to be rude, you know.” Stiles says, nonchalant, as if he's unaware to the fact that he just turned Derek's world upside down. Typical. “Don't burst an artery but I will definitely kiss you, if you let me, I mean. But I think it will happen, like very soon-”

“Stiles, please stop talking-”

“I thought you liked to hear me talk?” teases Stiles and Derek can hear his smile in his voice. “Or was 'I love you' an exceptional sentence? Maybe you should give me a list-”

“You are insufferable.” There's no heat behind it.

“I know right?” Stiles says, sounding a bit too pleased with himself. “And you're stuck with me now. Poor you.”

“Poor me.” Derek agrees. “What must have I done to deserve this kind of destiny?” He sniffles a bit and Stiles holds him tighter.

oooOOOOoooooOOOOoooo  
Stiles stays the night, again on the sofa as Derek keeps translating from old English and middle French, keeping the routine. Stiles pushes the blanket off of his shoulders as soon as Derek covers him, but it's warm enough in the house, he presumes. He stands there for a minute, suddenly fascinated with Stiles, and for the first time, Derek lets his gaze linger.


End file.
